Better living through empiricism

November 2016

November 09, 2016

Today appears to be a great loss, one with longstanding implications across many fronts. While some of the victories we’ve one will hold, it appears now that what I held to be the greatest domestic policy accomplishment of my life time, will be rolled back and tens of millions will lose their insurance. The battles we picked, the fights we won, were not enough to win a large enough coalition to sustain them.

What I find more troubling at the moment is that the American executive branch has increasingly accumulated power over years of gridlock. Part of the reason people have grown to distrust the system is the battle of Presidents and Congress that both can claim the mandate of the people but that lack a means to resolve their differences. The tearing down of norms has not been evenly distributed, Republicans pursued unyielding obstruction and undercut confidence in the system. Nonetheless, the power the Presidency has accumulated under both Republicans and Democrats must be faced as best we can. We have some handful of weeks to address that as best we can.

In the longer term, we’re going to need to convince more voters. But in the meantime, we there’s just loving our neighbors including those that don’t look like us, standing up to threats to life and liberty of all that live in our land, holding tight to those we care about, and seeking what common ground that can be found with those on the other side that does not compromise those principles.

Tomorrow morning, I intend to start the day by visiting the Lincoln Memorial. We have been through darker times as a nation, and the end of Reconstruction shows what backsliding can look like. This will be hard, we will need more that technocratic policy arguments and GDP growth but also religion and philosophies that have carried people through dark times in the past.

Hug those you hold dear. Be strong for one another. Thank you to everyone that has made the life I have enjoyed so much, that I have hoped to share more broadly, possible. Solidarity is the path forward I choose, I have much to contemplate in terms of how best to pursue it. But in the meantime, I’ll hold those I care about close and strive to do my part to protect the vulnerable in our country.